Unsane (Review)

Unsane is a Nightmarish Movie that Reveals the Nightmare Many Women Live.

It’s been a long time since a film has made me as uncomfortable as Unsane. It’s an unsettling nightmarish movie that kicked my anxiety into overdrive in the first act. However, it’s also a horror movie from one of the best directors working in the industry, Steven Soderbergh. Taking that into consideration, then I have to say that Unsane is an absolute masterpiece of horror. It’s just not one that I ever want to sit through again.

The film follows Sawyer Valentini (Claire Foy) who recently relocated to a new city and started a whole new life in order to escape a deranged stalker (masterfully played by Joshua Leonard). However, the nightmares haven’t faded for her and when she seeks help, Sawyer finds herself “voluntarily” committed to a mental health facility with shady practices. Over the course of the film, she starts to slowly question her sanity as the place that is supposed to help and protect people slowly grinds down her mental state.

Unsane is pretty much gaslighting in movie format (gaslighting being a practice of manipulating another person into questioning their sanity or recollection of events). The staff of the hospital that Sawyer finds herself in never “indulge” her cries for help or believer her when she starts seeing the face of her stalker in the halls. In fact, their solution is to pump her full of more drugs in order to make her more docile and an easier victim. Nurse Ratched herself would be proud of how useless and unhelpful the entire staff at the facility is. Eventually, their combined efforts cause Sawyer to start questioning if she really is crazy or not. Luckily for her, there are several other patients in the facility that are in the same shoes as her, and one in particular rallies to support her (Jay Pharoah). The thing is that the more he convinces her that she’s sane, the more terrifying her supposed “imaginary” sightings of her stalker become.

Director Steven Soderbergh filmed Unsane on an iPhone (a trend which is gaining steam in Hollywood and should come as exciting news to film students across the globe). This leads to harsh visuals throughout the movie. There’s a fluorescent glow that gives Unsane a washed out and unnatural look adding to the unnatural feeling of the movie. To emphasize this, most of the movie features claustrophobic cinematography filled with close-ups and constantly keeping items just on the edge of the frames to make the characters appear trapped in the shots. As uncomfortable as the gaslighting is in Unsane, the cinematography made it a truly unsettling film.

Considering it’s Soderbergh’s first horror film as well, he knocked it out of the park by making an actual scary movie. The audience can literally feel the torment that Sawyer goes through as she finds herself trapped within the mental health system. Realizing that the hospital has committed her simply to make a few dollars off her. As one character puts it, “They got beds. You got insurance.” Of course, this leads to the revelation that the staff not only won’t help her, but it’s actually in their best interest to hinder her recovery and release as best they can. So, when Sawyer’s stalker actually does show up, there’s no one that would even try to help her.

Unsane is a film with a small budget, so most of it relies on the performances to really sell the themes. Luckily Foy is incredible as Sawyer, especially as she undergoes a rollercoaster of emotions trapped in the sinister hospital. Her character is flung from highs to lows as she struggles to show the doctors what they “want to see” even as her sanity starts to slip from her treatment there. With her is Pharaoh, who acts almost like her version of Virgil guiding her through the nightmare she finds herself stuck in. Of course, these two are nothing compared to Joshua Leonard who manages to creep audiences out with just a look. Standing there, watching Sawyer with a laser-like intensity you can almost feel his eyes on you and the other characters. While he seems relatively “harmless” at first, his monstrous metamorphosis escalates as he finds himself emboldened by his immunity to discovery within the walls of the hospital.

While Unsane might be a horror film for many of us, what makes it all the more terrifying is how grounded in reality the concept is. Sawyer’s life is ruined by a man who won’t take no for an answer and invades every aspect of her being. When she finally does reach out for help, she’s told that she is just imagining it and that she’s a risk not just to herself but to others. Sawyer is a woman who is failed by those that should protect her and is at the mercy of a man who is a real predator. Her concerns are glossed over, her panic is ignored, and her safety is second to profit. In the end, her treatment by society is what eventually causes her to question her own sanity, and that rings true in a world where people like Brock Turner and Larry Nassar seem to walk around with impunity.

Unsane is masterfully made and a movie that is a true nightmare to sit through. That’s the point though. It’s not supposed to be one of those fun horror movies you high-five your friends afterward. It’s a film that eats away at you, makes you squirm, and has you looking over your shoulder as you leave the theater. Unsane is one of Soderbergh’s best movies to date because it’s one of his most effective films. It’s a movie that causes intense emotional reactions in audiences because of how manipulative it is. I loved this film, but I’ll never watch it again.

Oh, but there is a cameo by Matt Damon. So, the movie isn’t nightmarish the entire time.